Goat – Fill My Mouth

A reputation for fashioning heady, world music influenced rhythms and an innate effusion of fuzz-tinged riffs, making for practical infestations of earworms, has always prevailed – and in fact grown ever more feverish – with the mere whisper of psych deities Goat. However, their latest outdoes even that majestic reputation.
Taken from their upcoming career-wide compilation, taking in their obscurities and beloved standalone singles, Fill My Mouth is the second of two brand new Goat concoctions (after the excoriating psych-splendour of Queen of the Underground) on the album. Both tracks were recorded in 2020 – audial proof, if it were needed, that the band’s blazing creative onslaught continues to spread across the global musical sphere. Fill My Mouth buoys incredible folk, flute infusions with their immediately recognisable scuzzy, psych instrumentation.  From: https://www.backseatmafia.com/track-goat-follow-up-grand-return-with-fill-my-mouth-their-sleaziest-recording-yet/

Dr. John - Live Ultrasonic Recording Studios, Hampstead, NY 1973

01 Loop Garoo
02 Walk On Gilded Splinters
03 Danse Kalinda da Boom
04 Stag-O-Lee
05 Travelin' Mood
06 Junco Partner
07 Life
08 Put a Little Love in Your Heart
09 Tipitina
10 Mess Around
11 I've Been Hoodooed
12 Such a Night
13 Right Place, Wrong Time
14 Let the Good Times Roll
15 Wang Dang Doodle
16 Mama Roux
17 Qualified
18 Little Liza Jane
19 Mama Don't Allow No Dr John in Here

The discovery of a long-lost FM radio broadcast of the Doc and The Rampart Sympathy Orchestra caught in full effect by WLIR at an intimate venue in Hempstead, NY (Long Island) would be cause for celebration in those quarters where Mac Rebennack’s name is revered, but the quality of the performance and the breadth of material on offer make it doubly delightful.
Starting with night-tripping versions of Loop Garoo and I Walk On Gilded Splinters, Mac and a cast including John Boudreaux, future Crusader Robert Popplewell, Sugar Bear Welch and the horn tag-team of Darrell Leonard and Jerry Jummonville are perfectly equipped to branch into the contemporary pieces he was creating with Allen Toussaint. Life, Such A Night and the funked-up Right Place Wrong Time sound as crisp as they should – newly minted masterpieces. The return journey via Mama Roux and Qualified are pure groove from the depths of the Garden District. It’s all highlights, but the priceless moments include Rebennack strapping-up his guitar for Wang Dang Doodle and laying down a definitive (Come On) Let The Good Times Roll. This’ll make your black candles flicker.  From: https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/at-the-ultrasonic-studios-the-lost-broadcast-new-york-1973 

Melody's Echo Chamber - I Follow You

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I guess I usually feel the rush to create when there is an emotional overflow. For me, mostly, the tension of disenchantment triggers the mechanic as I try to re-enchant my own world. I feel like stimulating creativity gets the psyche flowing. It's like a breather in your brain. I love to use music to create unknown landscapes, other worlds I can go to wander. Like everyone else gently mad, I have millions of ideas flying by. And then only a couple get materialized, thank god!

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? 

I think it's all imprinted and dancing in your cells; the landscapes, the emotions, the poetry you've fed your mind and body with through the years. I feel like they naturally shape what you create. For Emotional Eternal, the process started in a cathartic momentum, a kind of spiritual experience. From there, I think, I did envision the clear idea of a simple and essential turn in the elaboration of this album. It was probably a counter-reaction to the previous album's delirium. I do have sonic visions for sure and then sometimes it happens or it doesn't Sometimes reality transcends the imaginary, like the strings on Alma - the Voyage for example, When Josephin Runsteen recorded the strings guided by Fredrik Swanh and Reine Fiske without me, it just surpassed my expectations, resembling something like felicity. 

What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I can say for sure that I always want to create space for chance to happen. But this time, only into very structured frames of time. It actually worked out being as inspiring if not more for us to have a sort of time guardrail. But we still worked madly to make it sound as natural as though it had come about by chance. We found an equilibrium on Emotional Eternal. 

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

Yes of course, I have been obsessing about my vocal sound settings from the debut album onward. I actually had to record all my vocals into the mac microphone to use that effect on my computer instead of using Swahn's great mics. He wasn't that happy about it but we always adapt to each other's oddities. In the studio it was coffee and a lot of smoking for me. Swahn makes his studio very cozy with all his Swedish tricks. Reine has his favorite music baths to get in the right moods. 

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own? 

I think for me it mostly comes from the rhythm and flow of the song. When it's a lot of words, syncopated, lyrics come easier from the French source. When it's a floaty melody, in English. But I love the mystery with languages. I think each language has its poetry and it's so strange that you still feel the emotion even if you don't get the lyrics. I get that feeling with Özdemir Erdoğan's songs in Turkish. I later read the translation and realized why they were resonating with me so much. 

From: https://15questions.net/interview/melodys-echo-chamber-shares-her-creative-process/page-1/ 

Thumpermonkey - Abyssopelagic

1) The last full length release was back in 2012, so what have you guys been up in the interim?

Working very, very slowly on a new album, though it is pretty much complete now. Additionally, a lot of the last year has been spent concentrating on making sure that we have a good strategy for its release. Sel Balamir of Amplifier is going to be putting out the album on his new ‘Rockosmos’ label, so we’re all super excited to finally share it. Rockosmos has also just put out a 4 track EP called ‘Electricity’.

2) Where did the inspiration for ‘Electricity’ come from?

We’d played the new songs to Sel that we wanted to release as an album, and while he was really into the vibe, he felt that he’d like us to produce an EP quickly to help consolidate the identity of the label and ease new fans into what we do. So the initial ‘inspiration’ was basically Sel saying ‘write a load of new songs!’ This was a totally different approach to how we’d written the upcoming album – it’s the fastest we’ve ever written new material.
A lot of inspiration came after we settled on the EP’s front cover image – I’d been trawling through the British Library archives looking for ideas, and the image of a pith-helmeted englishman getting blown up by his experiments, (in this instance, trying to use electricity to ‘transform babylon’), stood out. We already had the shells of songs by this point, but the image suggested new themes to me – ancient civilisations, colonial arrogance, religion – that kind of stuff. These ideas seemed to naturally worm their way into the lyrics.

3) How do you write and compose your songs? And are there any specific influences on your writing style?

It’s a very democratic process. What normally happens is that everyone produces scores and scores of demos that eventually get whittled down to a shortlist that everyone is happy to experiment further with. There’s very little jamming, really. One of us will end up taking a demo, mutating it into something else, and then if everybody is into it, we’ll start trying to learn it and refine it in a rehearsal space. We’re big fans of the Immersion Composition Technique – also known as the ‘20 song game’, where everyone in the band is forced to write 20 songs in one day, and then meet to see if there are any bits worth keeping. You can check out www.ics-hub.org for more information about this way of writing.

4) Since your last release the industry has moved apace, are you fans of streaming or do you prefer the physical release?

I think it’s not worth getting too attached to a particular delivery method – I think bands just need to canvas the opinion of their fan-base and see what they are into. What we have learned, (and I don’t know if this is specific to the genre of music we’re making), is that there’s certainly a desire for physical product not to disappear completely. We get a lot of requests to reprint old albums and EPs that have been only available digitally for the last few years, so we promise we’ll try and get round to that!

5) Is there a new album due soon?

Yes indeed – now that the EP is out of the way, the next few months are going to be about getting an album release date set – the album is called ‘Make Me Young, Etc’, and will be released in 2018.

6) In the digital age how important do you see the role of social media in promotion?

I know many bands are frustrated by having to engage in advertising on social media platforms, and it’s easy to focus on the negative, but it really is critical I think. While you are fighting against a certain amount of white noise due to the sheer volume of people competing for attention, it’s worth stopping and reflecting on how these platforms offer you the opportunity to connect with people who otherwise never would have heard your music.

7) any further live dates planned?

We’re playing at the ‘8 Years of Chaos’ all day-er on Feb 3rd at The Brewhouse, London – Chaos Theory is our favorite promoter, and it will be great to play alongside all the other excellent bands that Kunal has picked from nearly a decade of bonkers shows. We’re also looking at dates outside of London as well.

8) Who are your favourite artists/bands?

We don’t all agree on the same influences, but generally speaking we’ve got a lot of time for Shudder to Think, Magma, King Crimson, Deerhoof, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and Scott Walker’s recent output.

9) Can you recommend any up and coming bands to us?

Most recently I’ve been really getting into Charlie Cawood’s lush instrumental solo album ‘The Divine Abstract’, (Charlie is the bass player for old label-mates Knifeworld, as well as being a multi instrumentalist in about 20 other bands). Here’s hoping he figures out how to perform it live I’ve also been enjoying recent releases by Yowie (“Synchromysticism”), and Strobes (“Brokespeak”).

10) What question would you like to be asked in an interview that you never have been? (And what would be your answer).

I’d like somebody to ask me about my constant inclusion of references to Aztec theology in Thumpermonkey song lyrics. My answer would be very long.

11) Vinyl. Yes or No and why?

Sure – why not! Our upcoming album is hopefully going to have a vinyl release. I’m not one to spend too much time engaging in discussions about the perceived positive or negative aspects of a specific format – a substantial amount of our fans have asked for vinyl version, and all I’m concerned about it that this sounds like a lot of fun. I’m personally looking forward to seeing the artwork in a larger format as well. If enough people demanded our album on a 90 min cassette, I’d be happy to consider it. Maybe not minidisc though. Or wax cylinder.

From: https://www.progradar.org/index.php/2018/01/09/interview-with-thumpermonkey-by-james-r-turner/ 

 

Marisa & The Moths - Get It Off My Chest

ReturnToSound: “A great show at The Green Door Store, though it all started off with a little bit of technical difficulties and you probably had to adapt. I think you had to go acoustic a little bit early in the set, didn't you?
 
Marisa Rodriguez: “Yeah, that's never happened before so that was an interesting one, so basically Myke Gray was stepping in for Alez (D’Elia). It was his first time doing it and he brought his amp and it just broke. It was working and then it broke a minute beforehand. It's annoying because we prep for so long, we make sure this stuff's working, but you just can't predict if something's gonna break that's of no age”.

RTS: “There was a period when everyone was trying to go wireless, but everyone's gone back to good old plug it in with dodgy cables because it's rock ‘n’ roll isn't it?”

MR: “I actually feel differently. I've had less issues since using wireless than when I had cables because I no longer trip over them and actually, we fit my pedal board - because there's quite a lot of pedals - into a flight case where our in-ear system is then no one touches it. All of the leads that connect it were custom-made, so it lives in the drawer, and nobody touches it. I've also had an amp die at a gig as well, but I was like fuck it, I’ll just do it with lead guitar, bass and drums, it's fine I just won't play - it's fine. The good thing about that experience was that I realised that I didn't have to play a guitar in every song and that's why we are doing what we're doing now. It's meant that we can elevate our live performance more. I feel like there's a silver lining when things go wrong sometimes”.

RTS: “That's the experience you pick up playing live on the road. Those scary moments test you and like you say something good may come out of it”.

MR: “Definitely. I mean there’s nothing scarier than everything going off on stage and everyone just looking at you like “dance monkey”. I actually found out recently that I have ADHD, which makes a lot of sense for how I think I react to certain life scenarios. When small things happen, I can freak out more than a normal person but when under severe pressure, or in a really bad situation I can be the calm one. I'm like, right, how are we gonna deal with this? So I think maybe that part of my personality comes in handy.”

RTS: “You've actually been diagnosed? Though I don't know how you test for conditions like ADHD to be honest, what did you go through if you don't mind me asking?”

MR: “It was a psychiatrist in the private NHS sector. I was basically struggling with a lot of things that other people didn't seem to be struggling with and I've been struggling since I was at school. I just thought that maybe I was stupid or something, so if I struggled, I just kept quiet about it. I've actually just realised that I've spent my whole life bullying myself for being me when there's nothing wrong with me, my brain just works differently and actually I think I excel at certain things that other people wouldn't because of my brain being the way it is. I think, if you have the knowledge, that knowledge is power and if you understand how you work, you can accept it. You can double down on the things that you're good at and try to work on the things that you're not, rather than just beating yourself up for it. They're talking about this a lot more now especially for women, because they're now calling women with ADHD the lost generation. It shows completely differently in women than guys, that's the reason why they couldn’t be tested for it before because when they were studying people with ADHD, they only studied boys, so it's only recently that they have done something about it. So, yeah, to be honest I just wanted to know that I wasn't mental (with a chuckle)”.

RTS: “Haha, yeah, I think as you get older, I'm not calling you older in any way, but you learn more about your personal qualities and your imperfections. That's part of growing up, I think when you're very young, as you say, you may get mixed up and it can be very hard. It has probably given you some sort of release to know?”

MR: “I just wish that I had done it sooner, but I believed that in my head it was like, well … that's just the naughty boys at school that didn't get good grades or try hard, because I had to try hard. I struggled but it was like I had to get good grades, and I had to do what it took to get the good grades. It's just different. I think they said that women tend to internalise it more and mask it better than boys do.”

RTS: Has this played into your lyrics and song writing?

MR: “I didn't actually find out about the ADHD until after our recent album releases. It’s totally given a different meaning to a bunch of my lyrics and makes me think… oh yeah, this all makes sense now.  Obviously, I write a lot about mental health and my experience of being in an abusive or toxic relationship. I think having undiagnosed ADHD may have affected my relationships and the choices of people I’ve been with. They weren't good choices, let's put it that way. They weren't very kind to me, but I think maybe I don't realise that I have a PP (people-pleasing) nature myself and maybe I could have gotten out of those situations more easily rather than just thinking there's something wrong with me all the time and thinking that I had to fix it because it was my responsibility, as it must be my fault.”

RTS: “It seems that you have come to a place where you can please yourself, you can now demonstrate to others who you are? Fate is taking you into the right place to be yourself in front of a band?”

MR: “Definitely yeah, everything happens for a reason, I really feel that. I’m still human, though, and have my bad days like everyone else. In Brighton I kind of touched on that fact, I was very open about the fact that I had a bad day. I know it sounds random maybe but part of me was like, oh no, did I bring this chaos with me BECAUSE I was having a bad day. I was just a bit overwhelmed. But it happens to us all, right?

RTS: “You have the band around you, they look like they back you both in musical and mental terms?”

MR: “Absolutely! We're all really good mates. We all have our strong points and our weaker points but, yeah, we're a really good team and we all get on and have a laugh.”

From: https://www.returntosound.co.uk/features-and-interviews/marisa-rodriguez-from-marisa-and-the-moths-explains-life-on-the-road-in-an-honest-interview

Poco - What If I Should Say I Love You

From the Inside is Poco's most unusual record, and one the band -- especially founder Richie Furay, whose songs were sort of pushed into the background -- finally didn't like all that much. But it was a very good one anyway, produced in Memphis by guitar legend Steve Cropper and featuring the group generating a leaner, more stripped-down, somewhat bluesier sound. The harmonies are less radiant and the guitars more subdued, and the spirits also a little more low-key than usual. But the sound they get is still appealing, the singing more reflective and a little bit closer to R&B than to the post-Byrds country-rock for which they were known -- the songs are pretty, and in listening terms George Grantham's drums and Timothy B. Schmit's bass are nice and upfront in the mix, and the guitars have a really close presence, even if they are turned down.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/from-the-inside-mw0000268643#review  

Laüsa - La-Baish A La Ribera

Laüsa [lahuzo] means in Gascon: “A glowing piece that moves away from a fire, or that springs from the friction of two units.” Laüsa is a musical journey through songs, which draws its identity from the Gascon musical tradition and takes a detour here and there. Their music is multifaceted, open and generous: we hear Mediterranean and Atlantic influences, as well as sounds borrowed from modern music. Rich texts and personal compositions, as well as a repertoire that is the result of carefully selected collections: Laüsa offers a fresh perspective on traditional music. Lolita Delmonteil Ayral: accordion, vocals Camille Raibaud: violin, mandolin, vocals Julien Estèves: bouzouki, tenor guitar, vocals Juliette Minvielle: vocals, percussion.  Translated from: https://www.balfolk.nl/bands/lausa-fr/